Exactly two months to the day since Jon Lord passed away, the Sunflower Jam 2012 will celebrate his memory with a special tribute which will raise funds for the fight against pancreatic cancer.

The Sunflower Jam 2012 – at London's Royal Albert Hall on September 16 – will feature a tribute to Jon. Details of the music featured is yet to be confirmed, but the list of stars performing on the night includes a slew of Jon's peers; Ian Paice, John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Brian May (Queen), Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Steve Balsamo, and more.

Jon Lord was a trustee of the charity and performed there several times, most recently with Rick Wakeman and Joe Bonamassa in 2011. By supporting this year's Sunflower Jam, you will be helping to fight pancreatic cancer, help research new approaches and enable all pancreatic cancer patients and their relatives to get all the information they require.

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Sunflower Jam on pancreatic cancer

The Sunflower Jam will use the proceeds of this year's Jam to do original research on integrated approaches to pancreatic cancer and also produce an easily readable summary of promising treatments for patients with pancreatic cancer.

This will include conventional medicine, lifestyle approaches including nutrition, complementary treatments such as immune Modulation Therapy and hyperthermia, treatments that are beginning to look promising such as photodynamic therapy and the ways in which the mind can be harnessed to help fight this disease.

Mustafa B A Djamgoz, Professor of Cancer Biology at Imperial College London, will head the research into these Non Toxic treatments. By getting these type of treatments recognised within the medical field, Sunflower Jam hopes these forms of treatment can be used as an alternative answer to fight pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most difficult cancers to treat, not helped by the fact that it often progresses without manifesting strong signs. Also, when treated commonly with chemotherapy, drug resistance ensues, adding further difficulty to the long-term management of the disease. Consequently, at present, the five-year survival rate for this cancer is less than 5%.

College of Medicine

The College of Medicine (CoM) advocates integrated approaches to healthcare. Overall, this means combining 'western' therapies with complementary remedies some of which are derived from ‘eastern’ (e.g. Chinese) medicine but not exclusively so.

New Research Programme It is proposed that using a donation of £50-60K (expected) from the Sunflower Jam concert, a programme is set up to support integrated research on pancreatic cancer.

1. CoM will issue a call on their website for pilot research projects costing £20K maximum and lasting 12 months. In principle, some kind of apportionment may be introduced (e.g. not more than one-half of the grants may normally be given to the 'inside'). The world should see then that the College is not inward looking. However, quality will be the single most important criterion.

2. Applications will be made on a basic form (2-3 pages) by a given deadline. There will not be unnecessary paperwork.

3. A small committee (say 4 people, chosen mostly, but not necessarily exclusively from within the Science Council of CoM, and including a Trustee of SJ) will be set up. Peer review will be deemed absolutely essential.

4. Strict criteria will be used for making the awards – quality, feasibility, novelty, future potential, track record of the applicant etc.

The scheme will be administered by the College of Medicine's Science Council (chaired by Professor Mustafa B A Djamgoz, Imperial College London).